Gay Ctody Fights Refe Legal Parenthood - WSJ

Contents:

• THE CTODY CCIBLE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AUTHORY ABOUT GAY AND LBIAN PARENTS
• GAY CTODY FIGHTS REFE LEGAL PARENTHOOD
• MILLER V. JENKS: ONE GAY COUPLE'S CTODY BATTLE
• CTODY RIGHTS OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS RX: THE IRRELEVANCE OF CONSTUTNAL PRCIPL
• ‘OUR SON’ REVIEW: LE EVANS AND BILLY PORTER TURN A GAY DIVORCE AND CTODY BATTLE INTO SAME OLD SAME OLD

THE CTODY CCIBLE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AUTHORY ABOUT GAY AND LBIAN PARENTS

As LGBTQ parents stggled to mata ctody of children after g out, they employed experts whose arguments were signed to assuage hostile judg, but which unwtgly created a standard that today puts parents like Geulas at risk of losg ctody of their the midst of the gay liberatn and lbian femist movements, many married men and women me out as gay or lbian. Faced wh the arguments, untls gay and lbian parents lost ctody and visatn ti began to turn when gay and lbian parents lled on psychiatric experts to ttify their fense, cludg Richard Green, one of a group of psychiatrists who fought to remove homosexualy om the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s list of mental illns 1973.

Instead, even as they fend the fns of LGBTQ parents, the experts ntued to ame homosexualy and genr nonnformy as negative tras that “good” parents would help their children dog so, they created a legal rerd, and psychologil study evince that today n be wield as a weapon agast parents who support their children’s transgenr or genr-nonnformg inti.

GAY CTODY FIGHTS REFE LEGAL PARENTHOOD

The discrimatn they are facg fay urt today for supportg their children’s genr is a product of ntemporary opposn to transgenr visibily, but is also a legacy of gay and lbian ctody s that ma children’s genr and sexual normativy a basis for ctody termatns.

Rso-Young’s goal for the film is to draw attentn to every gay fay, pecially sce the Equaly Act — which amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and clus protectns for LGBTQ+ people agast discrimatn — still has not been signed to law and signifint threats rema for LGBTQ+ fai. ’” In his opn, which imposed strict limatns on visatn, the judge foced on the opposn wh the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) over the cisn to classify homosexualy as a mental illns, reasong that psychiatrists' abily to agree on how to fe or classify homosexualy dited that was impossible to know what effect Voeller's homosexualy would have on his children. Footnote 2 Voeller's trial illtrat the extent to which scientific thory ncerng homosexualy beme central to gay father and lbian mother ctody s, which were ligated creasg numbers after the APA's 1973 cisn to classify homosexualy as a mental illns.

MILLER V. JENKS: ONE GAY COUPLE'S CTODY BATTLE

Footnote 10 As this article monstrat, the APA cisn to classify homosexualy as a mental illns did not sever the relatnship between scientific thory and gay rights adjuditn, which had leter nsequenc for gay men and women for much of the twentieth century. The major psychologil explanatns for homosexualy the 1970s and 1980s emphasized the importance of early age genr role velopment termg sexual orientatn; whout evince to the ntrary, most mental health profsnals assumed that parental homosexualy would prevent children om learng the appropriate genr rol that would lead to a heterosexual orientatn.

Although the work of the scientists, which strsed that the children of lbian mothers and gay fathers would bee heterosexual, provid valuable evince for gay and lbian ligants, the studi also perpetuated the notn that homosexualy was an unsirable oute, creatg a double-edged sword for ligants. Footnote 17 Bee nservative rearch was rpondg to the succs of s liberal unterpart, anti-gay and lbian parentg studi did not velop until the late 1980s, although this was still several years before the nservative legal movement began addrsg sexual orientatn.

CTODY RIGHTS OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS RX: THE IRRELEVANCE OF CONSTUTNAL PRCIPL

While the 1970s are known for the rurgence of the nservative right, and proment advot like Ana Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly employed the specter of gay fai to argue agast liberal legal reforms, nservative law groups did not bee volved battl over gay and lbian fai until much later. Ctody s helped spur scientific quiry to the impact of parental homosexualy on children's sexual orientatn and genr inty, wh urts across the Uned Stat beg cril arenas for the articulatn of medil knowledge and foms for scientific bat on homosexualy. Drawg upon published appellate and trial urt opns, unpublished trial urt documents and transcripts, gay and lbian perdils, natnal and lol newspapers, personal rrponnce, oral history terviews, and other primary sourc, this article explas how the rearch agendas veloped, tablishg how ctody disput served as a ccible for the creatn of and ntts over scientific thory on gay and lbian fai.

Emergence of Lbian and Gay Ctody and Visatn Cas Lbian and gay parents did not beg assertg their ctody rights solely bee of the APA's classifitn, but rather the s were part of the same impulse to change the social stat of homosexuals Ameri that led to the diagnostic change. Footnote 24 Prr to the gay liberatn movement, and the creasg acceptance of lbians and gays Amerin society, heterosexual parents often blackmailed their homosexual ex-spo to relquishg ctody by threateng to disclose the gay parent's sexual orientatn to fay, iends, and workers. Footnote 26 The nservative movement's emphasis on “tradnal fay valu, ” a term that enpassed both the ializatn of the heterosexual nuclear fay and strict adherence to genr rol, served as an important rhetoril strategy to oppose gay rights, and monstrat the strong social opposn to gay parents many parts of the untry.

‘OUR SON’ REVIEW: LE EVANS AND BILLY PORTER TURN A GAY DIVORCE AND CTODY BATTLE INTO SAME OLD SAME OLD

”Footnote 47 Given that only a small percentage of se rerds survived, the source base for the tabl is limed providg a quantative acunt of change, but the data suggt trends that qualative evince also Central Role of Expert Ttimony Ctody Cas Expert ttimony beme central to ctody s when an creasg number of jurisdictns stuted a “nex requirement” the mid-1970s, which required evince nnectg the parent's homosexualy wh harm to the children. Although Daniel Rivers has argued that the visibily of the gay fathers movement “helped to refute the assertn that same-sex sexualy was pathologil to children” by monstratg that gay men were not antifay, the nservative movement's shift toward emphasizg the dangers of gay role mols renred the profay claims of gay fathers irrelevant to urts and the public more generally. Footnote 62 Before the emergence of the rearch studi, which intified sexual orientatn as fixed the first few years of a child's life, experts also exprsed apprehensn about the impact of parental homosexualy on adolcents, as the 1974 se of Sandra Schter and Malee Isaacson, which garnered natnwi publicy as one of the first lbian mother victori before a state supreme urt.

”Footnote 63 Kfman had told the urt there was no danger prr to adolcence, and that the mothers' sexual orientatn would only rult the children “grow[g] up knowg more about homosexualy and human sexualy general that most children, ” but that “this knowledge need not predispose them to bee homosexuals.